You Can Never Have Too Many First-Time Home Buyer Tips
A kitchen where you’ll bake birthday cakes, a garden where you’ll dig in to plant perennials … a sidewalk that will be covered in colored chalk again and again. Dreaming of buying a first home can come with a lot of images framed in pixie dust, but they may be matched with feelings of anxiety about whether you’ll have the savings or credit score to make it happen. To ease any worries, and help you embrace those magical images with abandon, here are first-time home buyer tips from our team at Dani Beyer Real Estate:
Get started on the financial requirements. Wondering if you’ve got the right financial profile to be a home owner can cause some worries, but you may be closer to buying a house than you think. There are some elements that will be evaluated, and you don’t have to wait to get them in order.
- Your credit score: Any lender will want to see that you have a history of making payments on time with credit cards and auto loans before they give you a loan for hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a house. Make sure your payments are up-to-date and that any lingering debt is cleared up.
- Employment history: If your employment has been less than stable, this might be motivation for staying in a job that’s been less-than-ideal for just a bit longer. Lenders want to see two years of consistent employment. If you’re self-employed, they’ll need to see two years of tax returns that demonstrate that your business is earning money.
- Debt-to-income ratio: Generally, lenders don’t want to see consumers with monthly debt claiming more than 36% of their gross income. If you’ve got outsized debt from cars or student loans, consider ways you might pay that debt down in order to pursue home ownership.
- Savings: A down payment requires anywhere from 3.5% to 20% of the home price, and you’ll also need to pay closing costs that can be 2-3% of the cost of the home. The down payment depends on the type of loan you are eligible for, so you might talk with a loan officer to find out what you will need to save.
Practice patience. Your perfect home is out there, but it may take a little time to find it. The emotional ups and downs between “This is the one!” and an offer rejection can be a little punishing, but remember that it’s perfectly normal to have an offer or two rejected on your way to finding the right home. Dani Beyer Real Estate can help you avoid rejected contracts by pinpointing exactly the right price to offer to the owner, given the current market conditions and comparable properties in the area.
Watch those dates. Another of the best home buyer tips is simply to stay focused. Once you have a contract on the house, it’s time to celebrate – just for a minute! The truth is that putting a contract on a house is exciting, but it’s also the start of a countdown clock with important dates along the way. Just a couple of days after the contract has been accepted, your title company will need an escrow payment. That’s just the beginning because it’s followed by inspection dates and a deadline to secure financing, along with negotiations on repairs with the owners.
Don’t worry, because Dani Beyer Real Estate will keep you updated about upcoming deadlines so that there’s no delay whatsoever in your closing process. You’ll be celebrating again and again as each milestone in your home buying process is completed, topped off by the moment you receive the keys to your first home!
Want to hear more first-time home buyer tips? We’ve got the inside scoop at Dani Beyer Real Estate. Contact us today to get started on your journey to the perfect first home!